Most of this is just healthy working practice for anyone, regardless of their remote/office status (schedule time for yourself, don't work too much, see people face-to-face etc).
Very valid points. I've been a remote worker for a year so I can understand many points. I haven't tried some things yet (travel) so hearing about it is insightful.
- Although my work permits being flexible, I'd rather have a normal person's schedule too! There's just too many real life things to take care of that require normal hours.
- After spending a lot of time alone, I have to find a friend to meet up with. I made another remote working friend so we meet up 2 times a week. It's odd but it does feel like there is some sort of pull towards human interaction embedded somewhere. I also enjoy the busy and loud cafe background.
- Taxes suck :( They have been very confusing since this is my first year. Still working on them :'(
I am a co-founder and employee of a company so while salary stuff is clear, things like dividends + fiscal residence + tax treaty makes you crazy to be short.
Just working remotely for a company and being in a specific location all the time is certainly way easier to handle.
I'm coming up on 17 years of remote working (we used to call it virtual office back in the day), and most of this rings true, however there are some additional considerations when a family is involved. I've found a couple of things to be most helpful as a family man:
Set a quitting time. Don't worry about starting your work day, that will happen by itself, but you need to put a good cap on the end of the work day, so you know when to walk away from work.
Have a place to work. I have a home office, but it could be a specific desk, room, or beach chair. Wherever it is, try to do your work there when family is around, that way they know you're working.
Leave your work laptop at your desk. Get a second laptop, tablet, etc that doesn't have work stuff on it if you're going to use electronic stuff around the family outside work hours.
And perhaps most importantly, take advantage of it! I have been able to watch my kids grow up in a way 99% of fathers can't dream of. I take them to dentist appointments, keep an eye on them once in a while when my wife needs to run an errand, and get to see the amazing lego creations they build right away - they don't have to wait till daddy gets home... My wife constantly drops comments like 'it's such a blessing that your job lets you be here for this', and it's true - I wouldn't trade it for the world.
It's true that a lot of people working remote need a quite place to work, but there's a lot that don't.
Your comment about having a second sets of personal devices for personal use reminded me of how given given I do all of my owned IT support that doing backups and having the data encrypted is really important if you're using device in public; lucky I've never had an issue, but I've know people that had a device stolen, stranger spill coffee on it, etc.; worth noting that a backup is worthless if you can't recover it.
What type of work do you do? Webdev, sysadmin or ? It seems remote working is only just becoming mainstream acceptable. How were you able to start doing so 17 years ago? Has it been with the same company or many companies? Are you independent consultant? Sorry for so many questions, I just haven't been able to figure out how to work remotely full-time. The best I've gotten was 1-2 days a week. Appreciate your reply.
I know someone who has worked over 20 remote years coding AS/400 for large corporations (last one I knew of was Whirlpool). Think she started on dialup. So it has been around for a while, but clearly has gotten more popular over time.
Here is how to find a remote job.. find a remote FIRST company. Not a normal company you ask if you can work remote. Find a company that only hires remote people. Watching the companies that post on say weworkremotely.com and you will find something interesting.
That said, remote jobs do tend to have more competition. Since anyone can apply to any remote job, I suspect they get 20x the resumes of a local job (would love to hear for someone who has worked both sides of HR to confirm). So you can't just apply to 2 jobs and assume you will get 1 of them. It will take more work.
It may have been higher. But it seems that weworkremotely seems to have a good bar for candidates. Also: I'm counting candidates, not agencies and such spamming.
> find a remote FIRST company. Not a normal company you ask if you can work remote.
+1 for this. I worked remotely for a while for a company who I convinced it would be a good idea. It didn't work out well because I was the only remote employee and their culture and processes just weren't set up for it. I spent more time reminding people to dial me into meetings and convincing my bosses that I was actually working than doing my real job. If the company isn't already bought into having remote workers, being the pioneer is painful.
Does that work out for you? I have not enjoyed being on the remote Minority of a project. Very easy to miss watercooler convos and totally be off tangent. People need to be very slack-first for the remote people to stay looped in.
Remote works best when the entire company is remote. It needs to be embedded in the culture IMO. Or else the remote workers often become isolated from the rest of the company.
It works well for us and is very much a part of our culture. Of the people who work out of the office, I'd guess that only half go in on any given day. Basically all conversations happen in our chat client and all meetings are in Google Hangouts. Email or Google Docs are used for things that need to persist or be searchable in the future. We do insist that, in general, you work more or less in a US timezone so you're available for "face-to-face" meetings and standups. That hasn't been a problem for anyone yet.
* Find a company that already relies on digital communication. Maybe they have a couple different offices, and employees communicate heavily over Slack. A company is unlikely to make this kind of change just for you, and I find it critical to working remotely with a team.
* Work for a number of years at a company and do a good job. Become a person they want to retain.
* Be an excellent communicator. Don't be the guy/gal who's hard to get ahold of because you're never logged into Slack, or because you check your email only once a day, or because you never answer your phone.
* Be upstanding, honest, and forthright. Be self-supervising. Be the person your manager doesn't have to think about, while still knowing you'll do an awesome job. Give them nothing to fear regarding whether you'll continue to do a great job without supervision.
* Be slightly underpaid for your market.
That last one probably isn't something to seek out, necessarily. But it's a good bit of leverage to use when trying to convince your manager that you should be allowed to work remotely. If you can convince them that letting you work remotely is free for them but a perk for you that's likely to keep you at the company, you've won.
I would much rather be a little underpaid and be able to work from home! Not having to suffer through traffic is worth at last 10k per year.
Only downside is not being around people as much. Kind of a two edged sword. But it makes me very friendly at the grocery store and coffee shop.
Been working from home since the 96 olympics. Hardest thing has been convincing my wife that when I am sitting at my desk and in the zone, that she should ask me a question every time she things of something new....
This is exactly what I saw at my previous company 5-6 years ago. They had no remote work policy but made exceptions for a few key people.
Those few were very good at what they did for years consistently and well liked (responsible, pleasant, mature).
I consider whatever extra steps required (being nearly always available on IM, etc) for remote work is well worth it, because remote work offers so much benefits.
I used to think server/sysadmin was one job where you had to be there and that remote job was only for devs. But now with AWS and cloud computing, sysadmin for remote working is just as easy. Amazing how things change.
This has always been the case for any competent sysadmin. I know of zero senior sysadmins that have worked on-premise on a regular basis over the past 20 years. You leave that for the remote hands guys who rack and stack stuff, not your senior level guys who's hours are much better spent doing harder things.
We used to do this via remote serial console 20+ years ago, then we moved to IPKVM, and now ipvkm over integrated IPMI controllers.
I've managed groups of sysadmins over the years, and the truly talented will outright refuse non-remote work. Since they can demand it.
All my previous employers required sysadmin onsite mainly because they didn't want to invest in the necessary infrastructure, like KVM with ethernet connectivity or networked powerstrips.
Maybe I just haven't been blessed with working with crack team of sysadmins or a shop big enough to justify such investment.
> I've managed groups of sysadmins over the years, and the truly talented will outright refuse non-remote work. Since they can demand it.
Sysadmin/Devops here. To confirm your point, I don't take any work that isn't fully remote, and I don't take any position for less than $100k/year USD (~15 years experience).
Couldn't he just use a door to indicate the same status? Door open = okay to come in. Door shut = no interruptions.
He seems eager to create additional work for himself to come up with a solution when there isn't really a problem. I wonder what else in life he is going to come up with an elaborate solution for (introducing many new potential points of failure) when the obvious solution has been in front of him the whole time. Would you really want to work with a guy like that? Would you want to pay him to solve problems for you?
I might not want to work with someone who didn't realize there is more than one purpose for a door, and that a single bit of information sometimes doesn't cut it.
Lync status updates automatically, whereas getting up to open and close a door takes work every time. Plus, it's just a fun little project. Lighten up.
>Leave your work laptop at your desk. Get a second laptop, tablet, etc that doesn't have work stuff on it if you're going to use electronic stuff around the family outside work hours.
Even if you don't work from home, keep work devices and personal devices separate. The closest I'll mix the two is logging into a public facing email portal if one is available. Want me to have official stuff on my smart phone? Then I need to be provided with one. Want me to take work home with me? Then I need a laptop.
I do not mix company and personal devices to reduce liability to myself and reduce risk to the company (I do my best to avoid getting viruses, but it would be hubris to think I'm immune to such).
How old are your kids? I've got a 3 and a 0 year old at home (with a nanny) and even on a separate floor, the chaos is making me want a regular office job again after 5 years working from home.
I worked from home with a 3-4 year old and a 0-1 year old for a year (they're in daycare now) and it wasn't a problem for me because I set clear ground rules that no one was allowed to bug me in the office unless it was an emergency.
I'd just close the door to my office put my headphones on (either with or without music) and get to work. Having the kids there was never an issue for me and it was nice being able to eat lunch with the kids some days.
As someone with small kids (slightly older), I can totally relate why it can seem so hard to work from home. Yeah, having such young kids at home will mean chaos, even with mom/nanny. My kids are slightly older and can entertain themselves for extended time but still I need to step away from desk to referee some arguments etc. But still well worth it.
Don't give up on working from home.
Look up coworking space near your home. Or ask around to borrow a cubicle or a desk from a firm nearby.
I have 3 and 0 year kid and sometime it's crazy. Especially when I have telco and younger one is screaming because is hungry. But we have huge house so I those cases I am moving to other end.
I am trying to help my wife as I can but work needs to be done first, unless goes for life.
I tust turned a year working remotely and have a 3.5 year old and an 18 month old. I knew from the get go it would be impossible to work from home and rented an office space as close as possible to home. Less than a 5 minute drive, or a beautiful 10-15 minute bike ride along a river.
I get to be home throughout the day as much as I want to be, I can be home in a moment's notice. But more importantly I can concentrate or take a phone call without the crashes, cries, and screams. I couldn't get ANYTHING done from home if I tried. Maybe when they're older/in school. Until then it's $800/mo well spent.
I wouldn't trade my current situation for an office job, it's the best setup I've ever had and the whole family is a lot happier since I switched to this- but it would be a different ballgame if I was home like you. I couldn't do it, I'd go crazy.
As a dad to a young family (2 kids under 3.5 and another due in two months) working remote (in our case all four of us that started our current company live in different cities) has been awesome. I just hit a year last week, I did it for two year about seven years ago as well (but I travelled 50%).
The key for me has been that I actually have a Regus office I go to, not just a space in the house- mostly because my kids are too young to get that dad's working.
My office is a 10 minute bike ride or 3 by car so I come home for lunch, take the kids to mid-day mid-week swim lessons, and basically have no problems with making appointments anymore. I run home frequently if the wife has an appointment, or sometimes just to clear my head and hang out.
I never bring my laptop home and I'm home before its dark now. Usually by 16:30, if I need to have a long day I'm in the office by 04:30 or 05:00. I go to bed a little early the night before and I add the hours to the beginning of my day and make sure I get home before dinner.
Most mornings I get to see the boys, help get them ready, make breakfast and hang out for a bit before I'm in the office. I also get to the gym at least 4 days a week and have lost 30 pounds in the last year while probably ACTUALLY working more hours per week.
I don't think I could ever go back to working like how I used to. I would leave the house at 05:30 to commute downtown. Get to the office by 6:15ish, and no matter what I did I couldn't seem to get out of the office before 17:00- meaning I got home between 18:00 and 19:00 depending on awful Seattle traffic.
I loved the people I worked with at my last company and I do miss seeing them every day, we still get lunches occasionally (I have to go to them, naturally) but I could never go back to a 'normal' office routine.
+1 to Regus for being a digital nomad or traveling.
They are available worldwide, with typically many locations in major metropolitan areas. The Internet is reliably good. Even small things like internationally-compatible AC wall plugs are a nice touch.
I can't say what it's like to rent a real office there, but for a backup for hotel Internet or just a place to get a change of scenery while away from home, they're great. I have the business world gold card, and it's not too expensive, especially compared to a coworking space located in just one city.
Coworking spaces local to a city are nice, but can vary wildly in cost, and sometimes require convincing the team to let you work there on short notice (walk-ins aren't particularly welcome, unless you carefully explain you have experience at coworking places).
One other nice thing about the Regus locations I've been to in big cities: there's usually some really nice views out their windows. This has been true in Boston, Auckland, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Tokyo - it's surprisingly inspiring!
Edit: and gosh do I realize this reads like I'm a shill for them. I'm not. It just seems like $60 per month - the cost of Internet in the USA - to get an office in any major city in the world is a good deal. But that's because I'm traveling a lot right now, too, so YMMV.
My first experience with them was in London about 8 or 9 years ago. That employer was starting up a London office and wanted a nice Trafalgar Square address. It made it incredibly easy to get 7 or 8 people together and have conference rooms, etc. and it was also a lot cheaper than immediately building out an office space.
My current setup is just south of downtown Seattle. At first $850/mo for about 120 square feet with a window seems expensive until you look into the other options. Building out a space for 1 person is crazy, a 'less nice' space isn't good for having visitors and all require you to obtain your own telco and Internet. None of the other places had shared spaces and bookable conference rooms. Lastly, having the receptionists is REALLY helpful, at minimum if you have packages you don't want sitting on your doorstep.
There's also something to be said about walking in to an office every day that's just _nice_. Even older spaces that haven't been renovated yet are still classy (and not in a Donald Trump way) and nice. The brand new ones like mine are significantly better than a lot of corporate HQs I've been to.
I'm moving to Portland in a few months and the first thing I did was pull up the Regus office map and start calling- my experience has been fantastic.
Every article about remote work makes it sound harder than it really is, and probably scares a lot of people off. I've been doing it for 3 years now and don't suffer from these problems. There was some initial shock for the first month or so where home = work = home but once I got past that it became easy. Now I wake up, grab my laptop and sit on the couch and work. When someone wants to talk I go to my office, or if I need heads-down time.
Otherwise I just live my life. I usually sign off around 5 and take my dog for a walk. I do normal hour-ish long lunches. If I need to mow the grass I go do that, no big deal.
Most people just like seeing co-workers, getting away from home, etc. Beyond that, some managers have trust or ego issues that drive them to require their staff to be on-site.
Oh man, I got a puppy 3 months after starting to work from home and it's been a struggle. I would get interrupted so often and she wants constant attention.. I ended up working poorly for many hours. Some nights I end up in bed at 5 or 6 AM because I don't get to do much during the day.. I hope she'll need me less when she gets a bit older.
exact same here. its really great, and i honestly think im much more productive than people who have to go in to an office- insulated from distractions and stress in a mostly good way.
Regarding point 6, I wonder how much a decent expat community from your own country, or at a minimum native speakers of your language, might help. For example, I imagine living in Hong Kong might be alienating after a while (I suspect this is because you may feel like you are a member of your own culture less as time goes by, but never quite feel fully integrated into your host culture), but if you have a core group of people with a shared original culture around you, that might go a long way towards staving off feelings of alienation.
English, an official language, and British culture are still pretty strong in HK though declining. Still, I get your point. I live in China and I while I don't work remotely, I just don't interact with the expat community. It's much easier if you have local friends and co-workers. I can't imagine being here as a remote worker -- China can feel pretty isolating. I just find your reference to HK odd because I go there when I don't want to feel isolated/alienated. HK is an extremely "western culture" place.
I used HK specifically because I have a friend (one of my my Fiance's best friends from highschool) that moved there a few years ago to marry a HK native. She lives there and works in the family store now. She's noted more than once (but not often) that she's somewhat lonely there, even though there are some people that live in the same building that are Americans, as she feels somewhat disconnected from them (although it sounded like this may have had something to do with them being wives that didn't work). She mentioned that in the store, her humor often falls flat with the other employees, so there is some cultural disconnect there.
She is Chinese, speaks the language fluently, and I believe she was born in HK, but she was raised in Northern California, and identifies completely as an American. It's entirely possible this confluence of attributes may cause more problems for her than if she was obviously Caucasian and living in HK.
That's a good consideration too, but I think he's chiefly talking about unhappy people, who believe that if they could only move to Elbonia where everything is wonderful, they will automatically be happy.
Alienation is one aspect to expat depression; another is the realization that other countries aren't magical fairylands that have everything figured out- they are full of ordinary people with ordinary problems, just like anywhere else.
I've been working at home for 4 years, and I sort of disagree with point #1. Maybe this is good for some people, but part of the high degree of flexibility comes from being able to work different, odds hours. Because of my freedom of working at home I can run to Costco at 10:30, or take my daughter to her soccer practice at 4pm. If I'm trying to wrap up some code, being at home allows me to stay focused past 5, sometimes 7 or 8pm, without the need to get in a car. It's give and take.
You are not really disagreeing :), the point was that a while ago I used to work 16 hours / day or work 2 am - 11am and sleep whole day which was really crazy.
Working between 7am - 11pm is quite ok, I agree with all those advantages.
I've worked remote for the past 10 years and I'll say treat your workspace as a real office, good chair, monitors, wireless headset, closed door to minimize any noise. Scheduling tasks is absolutely critical because I find your way more efficient and focused without office distractions. I'm easily 2x more efficient vs an office so I have more time with non-work activities. Get a small office or have access to one of those shared space offices to get away at times, don't think that Starbucks and Panera are places to get actual work done. It's easy to over work, so set aside time to learn something new to keep things interesting.
A lot of this rings true for me. I've been working remotely in SF for 5 years, though my company is based in CT. The 3 hour time difference makes things interesting, since I now work 6am to 2pm to be on the clock the same hours as my east coast colleagues. The disadvantage is the 6am start time. The advantage is the 2pm end time, which sometimes slips to 3pm. However, I still keep a very much Office/Personal dichotomy, where outside my working hours I tend to not be working unless there is a specific deadline.
The real downsides for me are:
1. The occasional loneliness
2. difficulty in casual collaboration with colleagues
3. the "work hangover" where after finishing work, I don't have adequate physical separation from it (like leaving the office gives you), and sometimes I can waste time after work is over before being able to spin up on something else.
The upsides are:
1. Music when I want it, silence when I don't.
2. Cheaper food costs, healthier meals
3. no commute costs
4. more overall time to indulge in hobbies/side projects
5. tax benefit of maintaining a home office.
6. save on dry cleaning, clothing costs
7. can run errands during the day, and always have the 2-5pm block of time while normal companies are still open, and I am free.
It's interesting to me that you have adjusted your working hours to match your company. I work for a company in London and I would never be able to match their working hours. Is that a requirement from your company, or just something you hold yourself to?
it is a convenience thing - If they need me, I'm up. If I need them, I know when they're available. My role involves some support for other employees, and also some reliance on others. I work in the research/consulting/advisory business, so I'm less independent than many developers.
How much tax benefit do you get from deducting your home office? Are you a contract employee? I've run the numbers every year, and I generally don't have enough deductions to justify going through the work.
This is one person's experience and viewpoint. I've worked remote for the majority of the last 6 years and haven't run into anything like this.
Why would you treat working from home any differently than working from the office? I wouldn't work until 8pm in the office, so why would I do it at home?
The special scheduling of personal appointments doesn't make sense to me. If you were in the office, you'd tell people "I'll be away from 1-2 today" and that's it. I do the same thing when I'm working from home.
Maybe I'm weird because I'm not big on socially hanging with my coworkers, but the face time doesn't bother me at all. We do a lot of video calls, I see them plenty.
My work is not my life. I've never had trouble separating work and home life. Working from a room in my house has never changed that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some yard work to do on my lunch break.
I just want to say, as someone who currently works remotely, the points about travel don't apply to everyone. Some of us don't have to fly around for our jobs, no matter where our base of operations is. The last flight I took was to a conference my company sent me to, which I would have taken even if I worked in-office.
i agree with this. i have yet to meet a very productive remote employee that is changing locations frequently. all the travel i do is either for work, or vacation, in which case it would be the same if i were in office.
I struggled about finding the right title, I don't really consider myself a fully digital nomad either, the article is about remote work, however under my personal circumstances, I am now more an expat than a nomad.
Some learnings happened also in different periods of my life, so is really hard to write a title/content that is clear and all the people reading it will identify.
My job for the past 2.5 years has been remote and one thing that I have a problem with is getting out of the house. I (kinda) followed "Invest in yourself" to the point where I have a desk I like with monitors I like and my cozy little spot.
It's hard to justify "Get out of the house" when you've built a nice work spot for yourself. Maybe it's because the audience for this is in an urban environment where it's a 5 minute walk to the coffee shop (as opposed to my suburban 10 minute drive) or maybe it's because I'm cheap and know the coffee at home is cheaper than paying "rent" buy buying coffee.
I'd really be curious to hear other remote workers' experiences with getting out of the house.
I work (as network engineer) from home around 1 year and I am very satisfied. I have project based position and am the only one (within department) who is taking care of specific role. I have global customers so they don't care if I sit here or 500 kilometers over-there. Provided service is still the same.
Here are my experiences from last year:
1. I have own workplace with stand-up desk, big screen.
2. I have silence for thinking and creating.
3. In case of lower workload I can work on some side projects or get some home-tasks or child-care.
4. I am out of noisy open-office.
5. Nobody is staring at my screen and asking silly questions what are you reading? What is it? Can you send me a link?
6. I didn't get any open-office illness.
7. I don't have to fight for air-conditioning/heating temperature.
8. I am home from work after 1 second.
9. Since I don't travel to the office I save a huge amount of money
10. I don't feel lack of social contact. I have neighbors at our street, family near to us. I am introvert. Maybe sometime I don't have someone with same technical expertise but never mind.
11. I am living in area with lower cost for living so I am saving money, I have higher quality of life.
12. I don't need afraid that my car will be scratched (as happened a year ago at private parking, of course no camera records, no witness).
13. Sometime it's hard especially if kids are getting insane and make huge shambles.
14. Relationship with your spouse require higher attitude because you are threatened by marine disease. You are together very often without break.
I would not change it back to the open-office insane workplace.
In regards to blogpost...I can confirm point #6 - third culture kid. After 5 years living abroad I moved back to my domestic country.
There's a variety of work-from-home situations. The OP describes a situation of WFH while living in foreign countries, and apparently he's also self-employed.
Others (like myself, since 2012) are full time employed and work literally from home.
Still others work from local coffee shops or other comfortable hotspots.
As a full time employee, and having tricked out my home office with a comfortable chair and good equipment that I paid for myself, WFH is like being at the office, minus the noise and inconvenience.
Financially speaking, WFH is a huge win for most of us who aren't lucky enough to be able to walk 10 minutes to the office:
- I no longer commute 15-20 hours a week, which to me is worth an extra $20K a year.
- I don't have to make lunch, or buy lunch.
- I can go running at lunchtime, in fact, just stand up and go out the door, back in 50 minutes, and at some point I'll hop in the shower, at my convenience.
- I can time-shift my work; dental, quick shopping trips, running down to the Post Office, etc. become very easy to fit in.
- I can time-slice my day, getting my work done while fitting in 5 minutes here and there of practicing the piano, walk out into the woods to clear my head, or reading the news or checking social network sites without feeling self-conscious.
- Privacy
- Quiet
- Lighting as I like it.
- Can easily do the laundry.
- Easily make a personal call.
- Take a "youtube" break now and then, no need for phones. Ditto for having music going, though I'm more of a silence kind of guy.
True, you miss the 5-minutes-in-the-hallway kind of interaction that can grease the wheels and answer questions quickly, but phones, chat/texting, Facetime/Skype, screen sharing, and email pretty much cover it. A small price to pay in my opinion.
Most of this is pretty solid, though not particularly insightful.
I disagree with point #1 about working a "normal schedule". I think being able to adapt to work when the mood strikes (or doesn't) is one of the best things about being a digital nomad. Personally, I schedule my times in blocks which are different on different days, and adapt to the needs of clients, team, my current timezone offset, and personal schedule (classes, dinners, etc.). I also move things around as I go, to adjust to things like nice weather to go out, having a slow morning, or being inspired to do something. Note that while I am flexible, I'm also very disciplined about scheduling work time, averaging 75hr weeks.
I also disagree with #6. I've certainly experienced being happier in some countries (and cities) than others. I think one of the great things about being a DN, is experiencing daily life (not vacation life) in different countries, and learning where you are the happiest in different areas of your life. Then, unlike a vacationer, who sadly has to return home, a DN has the ability to extend their time in those places.
When I think of happiness, I also think of fulfillment which is more granular than just being "happy". There are different areas where you can experience fulfillment: family, friends, hobbies, work, lifestyle. Different locations provide these in differing ratios. In one place, you may be happy that you can be near family, while in that place, you miss surfing. One of the great things about being a DN, is that you don't have to chose only one of these. You can mix them in various intervals. Last year, I spent a lot of time with family and friends in a bunch of different countries, made two trips to Peru, two trips to Japan, and a bunch of time all over Europe and Mexico. I would say I'm happier for it, than if I had been in any one place, even if I spent the whole year in one of my favorite cities.
I thought I was going to agree with #3, but agreed less the more I read of his description. To me, it's much more about being around specific selected people that I care about: family, friends, clients, partners... Also beneficial are places where I connect with people based on shared interest. Meeting random people in cafes is nice sometimes, and the universe does throw interesting people into the mix, but for me it's about more than just, "having people around is always better".
Of everything here, #8 (Invest in yourself) is the strongest. The risk-adjusted return of informed and ongoing self-investment is phenomenal.
(source: Digital Nomad since '06. 10-20 countries/year while running multiple successful service and product businesses)
80 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 156 ms ] threadGood post overall though!
- Although my work permits being flexible, I'd rather have a normal person's schedule too! There's just too many real life things to take care of that require normal hours.
- After spending a lot of time alone, I have to find a friend to meet up with. I made another remote working friend so we meet up 2 times a week. It's odd but it does feel like there is some sort of pull towards human interaction embedded somewhere. I also enjoy the busy and loud cafe background.
- Taxes suck :( They have been very confusing since this is my first year. Still working on them :'(
Are you working for yourself or remote for a company?
I'm about 5 months into a remote job for a health company and I love it so far.
I am a co-founder and employee of a company so while salary stuff is clear, things like dividends + fiscal residence + tax treaty makes you crazy to be short.
Just working remotely for a company and being in a specific location all the time is certainly way easier to handle.
Set a quitting time. Don't worry about starting your work day, that will happen by itself, but you need to put a good cap on the end of the work day, so you know when to walk away from work.
Have a place to work. I have a home office, but it could be a specific desk, room, or beach chair. Wherever it is, try to do your work there when family is around, that way they know you're working.
Leave your work laptop at your desk. Get a second laptop, tablet, etc that doesn't have work stuff on it if you're going to use electronic stuff around the family outside work hours.
And perhaps most importantly, take advantage of it! I have been able to watch my kids grow up in a way 99% of fathers can't dream of. I take them to dentist appointments, keep an eye on them once in a while when my wife needs to run an errand, and get to see the amazing lego creations they build right away - they don't have to wait till daddy gets home... My wife constantly drops comments like 'it's such a blessing that your job lets you be here for this', and it's true - I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Thanks for advice!
Your comment about having a second sets of personal devices for personal use reminded me of how given given I do all of my owned IT support that doing backups and having the data encrypted is really important if you're using device in public; lucky I've never had an issue, but I've know people that had a device stolen, stranger spill coffee on it, etc.; worth noting that a backup is worthless if you can't recover it.
Here is how to find a remote job.. find a remote FIRST company. Not a normal company you ask if you can work remote. Find a company that only hires remote people. Watching the companies that post on say weworkremotely.com and you will find something interesting.
That said, remote jobs do tend to have more competition. Since anyone can apply to any remote job, I suspect they get 20x the resumes of a local job (would love to hear for someone who has worked both sides of HR to confirm). So you can't just apply to 2 jobs and assume you will get 1 of them. It will take more work.
Our ad for a sysadmin got 100+ resumes, of which about 50 were trashable, and we had a dozen plus excellent candidates.
+1 for this. I worked remotely for a while for a company who I convinced it would be a good idea. It didn't work out well because I was the only remote employee and their culture and processes just weren't set up for it. I spent more time reminding people to dial me into meetings and convincing my bosses that I was actually working than doing my real job. If the company isn't already bought into having remote workers, being the pioneer is painful.
* Find a company that already relies on digital communication. Maybe they have a couple different offices, and employees communicate heavily over Slack. A company is unlikely to make this kind of change just for you, and I find it critical to working remotely with a team.
* Work for a number of years at a company and do a good job. Become a person they want to retain.
* Be an excellent communicator. Don't be the guy/gal who's hard to get ahold of because you're never logged into Slack, or because you check your email only once a day, or because you never answer your phone.
* Be upstanding, honest, and forthright. Be self-supervising. Be the person your manager doesn't have to think about, while still knowing you'll do an awesome job. Give them nothing to fear regarding whether you'll continue to do a great job without supervision.
* Be slightly underpaid for your market.
That last one probably isn't something to seek out, necessarily. But it's a good bit of leverage to use when trying to convince your manager that you should be allowed to work remotely. If you can convince them that letting you work remotely is free for them but a perk for you that's likely to keep you at the company, you've won.
Those few were very good at what they did for years consistently and well liked (responsible, pleasant, mature).
I consider whatever extra steps required (being nearly always available on IM, etc) for remote work is well worth it, because remote work offers so much benefits.
I used to think server/sysadmin was one job where you had to be there and that remote job was only for devs. But now with AWS and cloud computing, sysadmin for remote working is just as easy. Amazing how things change.
We used to do this via remote serial console 20+ years ago, then we moved to IPKVM, and now ipvkm over integrated IPMI controllers.
I've managed groups of sysadmins over the years, and the truly talented will outright refuse non-remote work. Since they can demand it.
Maybe I just haven't been blessed with working with crack team of sysadmins or a shop big enough to justify such investment.
Oh, and I used to work with Windows servers...
Sysadmin/Devops here. To confirm your point, I don't take any work that isn't fully remote, and I don't take any position for less than $100k/year USD (~15 years experience).
I always though this was a novel way of indicating to the kids whether he could be disturbed when doing remote working.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IsDaddyOnACallABusyLightPresen...
He seems eager to create additional work for himself to come up with a solution when there isn't really a problem. I wonder what else in life he is going to come up with an elaborate solution for (introducing many new potential points of failure) when the obvious solution has been in front of him the whole time. Would you really want to work with a guy like that? Would you want to pay him to solve problems for you?
Even if you don't work from home, keep work devices and personal devices separate. The closest I'll mix the two is logging into a public facing email portal if one is available. Want me to have official stuff on my smart phone? Then I need to be provided with one. Want me to take work home with me? Then I need a laptop.
I do not mix company and personal devices to reduce liability to myself and reduce risk to the company (I do my best to avoid getting viruses, but it would be hubris to think I'm immune to such).
I'd just close the door to my office put my headphones on (either with or without music) and get to work. Having the kids there was never an issue for me and it was nice being able to eat lunch with the kids some days.
Don't give up on working from home. Look up coworking space near your home. Or ask around to borrow a cubicle or a desk from a firm nearby.
I am trying to help my wife as I can but work needs to be done first, unless goes for life.
I get to be home throughout the day as much as I want to be, I can be home in a moment's notice. But more importantly I can concentrate or take a phone call without the crashes, cries, and screams. I couldn't get ANYTHING done from home if I tried. Maybe when they're older/in school. Until then it's $800/mo well spent.
I wouldn't trade my current situation for an office job, it's the best setup I've ever had and the whole family is a lot happier since I switched to this- but it would be a different ballgame if I was home like you. I couldn't do it, I'd go crazy.
The key for me has been that I actually have a Regus office I go to, not just a space in the house- mostly because my kids are too young to get that dad's working.
My office is a 10 minute bike ride or 3 by car so I come home for lunch, take the kids to mid-day mid-week swim lessons, and basically have no problems with making appointments anymore. I run home frequently if the wife has an appointment, or sometimes just to clear my head and hang out.
I never bring my laptop home and I'm home before its dark now. Usually by 16:30, if I need to have a long day I'm in the office by 04:30 or 05:00. I go to bed a little early the night before and I add the hours to the beginning of my day and make sure I get home before dinner.
Most mornings I get to see the boys, help get them ready, make breakfast and hang out for a bit before I'm in the office. I also get to the gym at least 4 days a week and have lost 30 pounds in the last year while probably ACTUALLY working more hours per week.
I don't think I could ever go back to working like how I used to. I would leave the house at 05:30 to commute downtown. Get to the office by 6:15ish, and no matter what I did I couldn't seem to get out of the office before 17:00- meaning I got home between 18:00 and 19:00 depending on awful Seattle traffic.
I loved the people I worked with at my last company and I do miss seeing them every day, we still get lunches occasionally (I have to go to them, naturally) but I could never go back to a 'normal' office routine.
They are available worldwide, with typically many locations in major metropolitan areas. The Internet is reliably good. Even small things like internationally-compatible AC wall plugs are a nice touch.
I can't say what it's like to rent a real office there, but for a backup for hotel Internet or just a place to get a change of scenery while away from home, they're great. I have the business world gold card, and it's not too expensive, especially compared to a coworking space located in just one city.
Coworking spaces local to a city are nice, but can vary wildly in cost, and sometimes require convincing the team to let you work there on short notice (walk-ins aren't particularly welcome, unless you carefully explain you have experience at coworking places).
One other nice thing about the Regus locations I've been to in big cities: there's usually some really nice views out their windows. This has been true in Boston, Auckland, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Tokyo - it's surprisingly inspiring!
Edit: and gosh do I realize this reads like I'm a shill for them. I'm not. It just seems like $60 per month - the cost of Internet in the USA - to get an office in any major city in the world is a good deal. But that's because I'm traveling a lot right now, too, so YMMV.
My current setup is just south of downtown Seattle. At first $850/mo for about 120 square feet with a window seems expensive until you look into the other options. Building out a space for 1 person is crazy, a 'less nice' space isn't good for having visitors and all require you to obtain your own telco and Internet. None of the other places had shared spaces and bookable conference rooms. Lastly, having the receptionists is REALLY helpful, at minimum if you have packages you don't want sitting on your doorstep.
There's also something to be said about walking in to an office every day that's just _nice_. Even older spaces that haven't been renovated yet are still classy (and not in a Donald Trump way) and nice. The brand new ones like mine are significantly better than a lot of corporate HQs I've been to.
I'm moving to Portland in a few months and the first thing I did was pull up the Regus office map and start calling- my experience has been fantastic.
Otherwise I just live my life. I usually sign off around 5 and take my dog for a walk. I do normal hour-ish long lunches. If I need to mow the grass I go do that, no big deal.
a) working from home (but in the same city) - relatively easy to adjust to
b) digital nomadism (moving from city to city every few months) - harder
I suspect that living in a more expat-friendly city will make the transition easier, however my point remains, won't be like living the dream.
She is Chinese, speaks the language fluently, and I believe she was born in HK, but she was raised in Northern California, and identifies completely as an American. It's entirely possible this confluence of attributes may cause more problems for her than if she was obviously Caucasian and living in HK.
Alienation is one aspect to expat depression; another is the realization that other countries aren't magical fairylands that have everything figured out- they are full of ordinary people with ordinary problems, just like anywhere else.
Working between 7am - 11pm is quite ok, I agree with all those advantages.
The real downsides for me are: 1. The occasional loneliness 2. difficulty in casual collaboration with colleagues 3. the "work hangover" where after finishing work, I don't have adequate physical separation from it (like leaving the office gives you), and sometimes I can waste time after work is over before being able to spin up on something else.
The upsides are: 1. Music when I want it, silence when I don't. 2. Cheaper food costs, healthier meals 3. no commute costs 4. more overall time to indulge in hobbies/side projects 5. tax benefit of maintaining a home office. 6. save on dry cleaning, clothing costs 7. can run errands during the day, and always have the 2-5pm block of time while normal companies are still open, and I am free.
Why would you treat working from home any differently than working from the office? I wouldn't work until 8pm in the office, so why would I do it at home?
The special scheduling of personal appointments doesn't make sense to me. If you were in the office, you'd tell people "I'll be away from 1-2 today" and that's it. I do the same thing when I'm working from home.
Maybe I'm weird because I'm not big on socially hanging with my coworkers, but the face time doesn't bother me at all. We do a lot of video calls, I see them plenty.
My work is not my life. I've never had trouble separating work and home life. Working from a room in my house has never changed that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some yard work to do on my lunch break.
A lot of us who work from home but stay put are confused by this article.
Some learnings happened also in different periods of my life, so is really hard to write a title/content that is clear and all the people reading it will identify.
It's hard to justify "Get out of the house" when you've built a nice work spot for yourself. Maybe it's because the audience for this is in an urban environment where it's a 5 minute walk to the coffee shop (as opposed to my suburban 10 minute drive) or maybe it's because I'm cheap and know the coffee at home is cheaper than paying "rent" buy buying coffee.
I'd really be curious to hear other remote workers' experiences with getting out of the house.
And this was the case for me even in a coworking space with people I came to know pretty well.
Jeff Atwood has written on this: http://blog.codinghorror.com/in-programming-one-is-the-lonel...
I came to the realization that others felt this from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3AAGlG6NqM&feature=youtu.be...
Here are my experiences from last year:
1. I have own workplace with stand-up desk, big screen.
2. I have silence for thinking and creating.
3. In case of lower workload I can work on some side projects or get some home-tasks or child-care.
4. I am out of noisy open-office.
5. Nobody is staring at my screen and asking silly questions what are you reading? What is it? Can you send me a link?
6. I didn't get any open-office illness.
7. I don't have to fight for air-conditioning/heating temperature.
8. I am home from work after 1 second.
9. Since I don't travel to the office I save a huge amount of money
10. I don't feel lack of social contact. I have neighbors at our street, family near to us. I am introvert. Maybe sometime I don't have someone with same technical expertise but never mind.
11. I am living in area with lower cost for living so I am saving money, I have higher quality of life.
12. I don't need afraid that my car will be scratched (as happened a year ago at private parking, of course no camera records, no witness).
13. Sometime it's hard especially if kids are getting insane and make huge shambles.
14. Relationship with your spouse require higher attitude because you are threatened by marine disease. You are together very often without break.
I would not change it back to the open-office insane workplace.
In regards to blogpost...I can confirm point #6 - third culture kid. After 5 years living abroad I moved back to my domestic country.
Others (like myself, since 2012) are full time employed and work literally from home.
Still others work from local coffee shops or other comfortable hotspots.
As a full time employee, and having tricked out my home office with a comfortable chair and good equipment that I paid for myself, WFH is like being at the office, minus the noise and inconvenience.
Financially speaking, WFH is a huge win for most of us who aren't lucky enough to be able to walk 10 minutes to the office:
- I no longer commute 15-20 hours a week, which to me is worth an extra $20K a year.
- I don't have to make lunch, or buy lunch.
- I can go running at lunchtime, in fact, just stand up and go out the door, back in 50 minutes, and at some point I'll hop in the shower, at my convenience.
- I can time-shift my work; dental, quick shopping trips, running down to the Post Office, etc. become very easy to fit in.
- I can time-slice my day, getting my work done while fitting in 5 minutes here and there of practicing the piano, walk out into the woods to clear my head, or reading the news or checking social network sites without feeling self-conscious.
- Privacy
- Quiet
- Lighting as I like it.
- Can easily do the laundry.
- Easily make a personal call.
- Take a "youtube" break now and then, no need for phones. Ditto for having music going, though I'm more of a silence kind of guy.
True, you miss the 5-minutes-in-the-hallway kind of interaction that can grease the wheels and answer questions quickly, but phones, chat/texting, Facetime/Skype, screen sharing, and email pretty much cover it. A small price to pay in my opinion.
I disagree with point #1 about working a "normal schedule". I think being able to adapt to work when the mood strikes (or doesn't) is one of the best things about being a digital nomad. Personally, I schedule my times in blocks which are different on different days, and adapt to the needs of clients, team, my current timezone offset, and personal schedule (classes, dinners, etc.). I also move things around as I go, to adjust to things like nice weather to go out, having a slow morning, or being inspired to do something. Note that while I am flexible, I'm also very disciplined about scheduling work time, averaging 75hr weeks.
I also disagree with #6. I've certainly experienced being happier in some countries (and cities) than others. I think one of the great things about being a DN, is experiencing daily life (not vacation life) in different countries, and learning where you are the happiest in different areas of your life. Then, unlike a vacationer, who sadly has to return home, a DN has the ability to extend their time in those places.
When I think of happiness, I also think of fulfillment which is more granular than just being "happy". There are different areas where you can experience fulfillment: family, friends, hobbies, work, lifestyle. Different locations provide these in differing ratios. In one place, you may be happy that you can be near family, while in that place, you miss surfing. One of the great things about being a DN, is that you don't have to chose only one of these. You can mix them in various intervals. Last year, I spent a lot of time with family and friends in a bunch of different countries, made two trips to Peru, two trips to Japan, and a bunch of time all over Europe and Mexico. I would say I'm happier for it, than if I had been in any one place, even if I spent the whole year in one of my favorite cities.
I thought I was going to agree with #3, but agreed less the more I read of his description. To me, it's much more about being around specific selected people that I care about: family, friends, clients, partners... Also beneficial are places where I connect with people based on shared interest. Meeting random people in cafes is nice sometimes, and the universe does throw interesting people into the mix, but for me it's about more than just, "having people around is always better".
Of everything here, #8 (Invest in yourself) is the strongest. The risk-adjusted return of informed and ongoing self-investment is phenomenal.
(source: Digital Nomad since '06. 10-20 countries/year while running multiple successful service and product businesses)